


Peace and Quiet

by Zofiecfield



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, One Shot, Short One Shot, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zofiecfield/pseuds/Zofiecfield
Summary: Jamie found peace and quiet on her knees - first in the garden, and then with Dani.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 25
Kudos: 133





	Peace and Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet exists entirely independently of any other work. However, it was initially conceived as part of _Tipping, softly, towards the void_ , and could be read as such, if desired.  
> xo, Z

Quiet is a delicate term. Peace, a soft thing.

Applied broadly with a blunt pen,

But rarely found.

Some people find peace on their knees at the altar, the temple, the shrine. 

They bow their heads and sink to the floor, beat their chests,

and there, there they find quiet.

Jamie, too, found peace and quiet on her knees.

She was not, however, one for altars,

nor one to batter her breasts for a god she had long since learned was not listening.

No, Jamie sunk to her knees elsewhere,

first, in the garden,

and later,

at Dani’s feet,

and found her peace and quiet there.

In the garden, the knees of her coveralls wore thin and the skin beneath grew rough.

Hands deep in the dirt, head bent low to each sprout.

She found quiet in the tender leafling, in the gentle coax of seed to bloom.

Deep greens and pale pinks and soft blossoms, and there, she found peace.

She had, before, known empty and had called it quiet. She had known numb and called it peace.

Peace and quiet, thin words, caressed and tucked close to the skin like shoddy armor.

Empty and numb, wolves masquerading as sheep, consuming her bite by bite.

Knuckles split and belly empty.

In the garden, she saw clearly. 

Saw the teeth marks left in her skin, the chunks torn away.

Amidst the living flowers and breathing greens, true peace and quiet took root and all else was shed away.

She began to heal.

Palms, growing tough from the work. 

Fingertips, steady across their tasks, plant and prune, like prayers on strands of beads.

Each bulb, each shoot and seedling, each weed dug from the ground.

Worship in its purest form, knees to the earth.

Peace and quiet.

And then, Dani,

who had woken like the garden, who had borne the weight of the deep winter.

Dormant in the dirt for so long, rising now, turning to the sun.

It was only right that Dani be met like this, like the garden. 

It was only right that she be met on knees.

Dani, backed against the door of her sparse bedroom,

all tongue and wandering hands, urgent and bolder than expected, delightfully so.

Dani, shivering against Jamie’s hands, spanned warm across her stomach.

Pleas on her lips with hips pinned, Jamie’s bite on her shoulder through the heavy knit.

The shudder from a brush of a button, from the zipper sliding down tooth by tooth.

Kicking off her jeans, hands taking over for Jamie, who was moving far too slowly.

A sigh, _Jamie,_

who dearly savored her name falling in heady desperation from parted lips.

The clash and crash of bodies.

Jamie pressed a kiss to Dani’s lips, to her neck, to the sharp of her sternum.

Her heart hurried ahead, racing the thudding beat of Dani’s own under her palm.

Thumbs smoothed over the ridges of ribs to find hips, in question.

 _Please,_ the answer, gasped against her skin,

with a hard nip of her bottom lip to punctuate.

The sweetness of it, the _before_ , as limbs bend and bow to find their place.

Jamie sunk to her knees

and the quiet descended within her.

A kiss, pressed to the soft plane of belly. 

Forehead resting there for a moment to bathe in the heavy inhale, the heave and catch of breath.

Peace rose, tendrils climbing, 

Dani’s fingers in her curls. 

The shuddering exhale through Dani’s frame.

Jamie had been here before, of course. 

She had knelt between the knees of other women, women whose names she had not bothered to learn, women who would use her, women she would use. 

She had knelt between their knees and felt nothing, emptiness awash. Numb.

And, in a time when the only alternative was brutal chaos and the gnash of teeth inside her, emptiness was welcome. 

Numbness, a pleasant change from the sting.

She called it quiet. She called it peace. 

She knew no different, at the time. 

But _this._

 _This_ was quiet. _This_ was peace.

The daring of their hearts laid bare, bold and pulsing between them.

Dani, watching with wild eyes, lips parted, impatiently waiting,

knees quaking, already.

The press of lips against the soft inside of the thigh.

One kiss, two. Slow to start the melody, hymn rising.

The heavy drag of Jamie’s tongue, broad, without warning,

her whole soul, sitting back on its haunches to listen as Dani’s gasp caught in her throat, as Dani’s fingernails scrambled for fruitless purchase on the doorframe.

They’d only just begun and already Dani was fracturing along the most pleasant of lines. 

_Fucking delightful_ , Jamie hummed against heat, as Dani arched sharply. So _fucking_ delightful to feel her move without thought of the world’s weight.

Jamie, stalling Dani’s pelvis with steady hands, enjoying the groan of frustration as Dani bucked and shifted in response.

A breath, brushing across the insistent pulse in the join of Dani’s thigh, then eager beat against tongue.

Dani, sinking her teeth into one palm around pants and cries, though volume was a battle lost as soon as the door clicked shut. Lost, and joyfully so. 

The other palm, having found no anchor on the smooth plane of the door, coming to rest featherlight on the back of Jamie’s head. 

Featherlight, for a moment, anyway, until Jamie centered herself again, and at last,

the answered pleas. _please, Jamie_

Gentle scrape of teeth, then between the lips, pulled in across the tongue on an inhale. 

Then featherlight forgotten, out the window entirely. 

Fingers, winding tightly into curls. Nails, scratching scalp in staccato bursts. 

This little desperate violence, so honest. Jamie’s heart sang to itself and she could barely stand the sweetness of it. 

Dani, open, all restraint, all tension, all weight laid aside. 

The physicality, raw and panting, a perfect mirror to the heart of it all. 

Peace and quiet.

Dani, tumbling over, her head thudding against the door as her legs gave way.

Dani, sliding down into Jamie’s waiting arms,

laughter already spilling from them both, bubbling up into the space only peace and quiet can provide.

Dani, breath still ragged, catching Jamie’s chin and pulling her in, fingertips already roving, whispers against lips.

Peace and quiet do not come to the soft whistle, don’t slip in sweetly upon first beckon. 

They claw their way up from scorched earth, throats raw from their labor.

Peace and quiet come like the garden,

worked with toughened hands,

knees sunk in the dirt.

Peace and quiet come in the spaces laid open,

daring and bold against the world’s weight,

like Dani against a door.


End file.
